Marketing Kicker

With the Pepsi Refresh Challenge Program, Pepsi is really making it personal

2010-07-18T20:01:00.000-07:00

Recently, I’ve been caught up with the Pepsi Refresh Challenge Program; both as an ongoing admirer of great marketing, but also personally because the Cure JM Foundation is trying to win a $250K grant from Pepsi. If you haven’t heard of this program, check it out. And when you check it out, vote for Cure JM. At the bottom of this blog you can learn more about Cure JM’s participation in Pepsi Refresh Challenge.

As a life-long student of marketing, I appreciate how well this program taps the essence of word-of-mouth marketing. People who are passionate about their causes vote everyday and the non-profits who tend to win these grants truly spread the word about Pepsi everyday via email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. The Facebook sign-up process is incredibly easy and lends itself to sharing effortlessly.

With social media that you don’t market too an audience, you market through an audience. So Pepsi has developed the perfect formula for letting very passionate people do their marketing. These people may not even be Pepsi fans. However, they are passionate about their own causes and are extending the Pepsi brand is the result.

There are only three areas I believe Pepsi could improve this program.

1) Communications – I think Pepsi could step-up the communications to those who vote by asking if voters want an opt-in daily reminder email (and link) to vote. For people with the best intentions, life gets busy and they forget to vote. An opt-in reminder would not be intrusive and would reinforce daily that Pepsi is doing great things.

2) Facebook app – It would be great if the app was easier to place on your FB page and if it could also show the other charities you support.

3) Mobile app – I’m floored that Pepsi does not have a terrific mobile app for Pepsi Refresh. Voting is exactly the type of activity one could do while waiting in line…to order a Pepsi. Like “video snacking”, “vote snacking” is a great way to keep people thinking about a brand.

All that said, The Pepsi Refresh Challenge is still a powerful brand building program. I truly hope Pepsi keeps it going into next year.

Below is the Cure JM participation info:

The Cure JM Foundation has entered the Pepsi Refresh Project to win a $250,000 research grant.

NOW WE NEED YOUR VOTE!!

HOW TO VOTE

Please go to: http://www.refresheverything.com/makejmamemory to vote for Cure JM. Click on the grey button that says Vote for this idea. You will be prompted to sign-in. It only takes a minute to register, and after that, click again on Vote for this idea. The Pepsi site will let you know that your vote went through. For the rest of the month, you will follow the same process; although it will be faster because you’ve already registered. You will always be prompted to sign-in, but this only requires your email address and your selected Pepsi Refresh password. You can vote EVERY DAY through July 31st for Cure JM….and each family member (age 13 or over) can vote too.

SPREAD THE WORD

Please spread the word to family, friends and colleagues. Reach out to at least 20 friends to ensure they vote once a day, EVERY DAY, until July 31st. Each family member (age 13 or older) can vote.

Click here for tips on how you can spread the word

MEDIA COVERAGE

Are you friendly with the local news media? Ask if they'll run a story about Cure JM and the Pepsi Refresh challenge.

Cure JM desperately needs this grant to continue funding our research centers and to ultimately find a CURE.

Thanks for your support!

3 ways to drive local retail promotions with Social Media

2010-03-04T15:59:00.000-08:00

Last week, Sarah Needleman published a terrific article in the Wall Street Journal on some new services that make it easier to combine social media and marketing, especially for the local retailer.

She mentioned a bevy of new services that help merchants create one day promotions, but cautioned that some of these services could be expensive if the promo flopped.

1) Groupon Inc.
A Chicago men’s suit retailer used Groupon to run a one day promotion last Fall. During this one day promotion, customers could buy a $95 gift certificate online using Groupon and the retailer would honor that certificate at a $225 value for up to one year. Now the catch was, at least 50 cards needed to be purchased before any would become valid. However, this was not a problem as the company sold 850 gift certificates that day.

The retailer said their promotion was shared all over Twitter and Facebook that day and over half of the cards were purchased by first-time customers. Groupon’s cut was about 50% of the revenue for each card. That sounds high, but assuming there will be “breakage” from unused cards that simply expire and that the retailer can convert at least half of the new customers to returning customers; this promotion set the retailer up nicely for business in the coming year.

2) FourSquare
FourSquare is becoming all the rage with people who what their social media to I.D. where they are when out. Using the FourSquare app downloaded to a smart phone, a FourSquare user can “check in” when at their favorite restaurant or merchant. The more you visit that retailer, the more points you can accumulate; eventually giving you the status of “mayor” of that establishment. Needleman gave the example, a Milwaukee burger joint offering free burger and fries to anyone who “dethroned” its current mayor to become the new mayor. The restaurant also ran a promotion where customer could get a free cookie by posting a recommendation on their FourSquare profiles of a menu item they like or something they do while at the restaurant like play cards.

The concept of this automated tracking is great when it is semi-private between the loyal customer and merchant; think grocery stores, Starbucks, airline programs – and yes, I know it is not completely private as database marketers are tracking your buying habits. However, time will tell if people will stop playing with FourSquare because of sites like Please Rob Me, which largely reveal the whereabouts of FourSquare users not at home…hence "go break into my house."

3) Twitter
Less automated and more like traditional advertising or word-of-mouth are the many shops and restaurants around the country just using Twitter and Facebook to promote their daily lunch specials or upcoming sales. For the most loyal customers, the enticement of a discount or promotion is not necessary. Sometimes just know what is in stock or what’s on the menu is enough. A few months ago, I met Melani Gordon, the founder of http://www.taphunter.com/ which lets micro-breweries tell customers via Twitter and smart phone apps which beers are on tap for the night and when the kegs of a specialty beer run out. She said, she has seen lines of people waiting to get into a micro-brewery for a new beer unveiling, frequently checking the app to see if the keg will still be pouring enough for them to have a few by the time they get through the door.

These days are a Guerrilla Marketers dream. As long as you have a great product or service, a loyal customer based and a good imagination, the sky is the limit. Because as many are learning, with Social Media you don’t market too an audience you market through an audience.

Powerful uses of viral video

2009-10-30T17:05:00.000-07:00

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending a San Diego American Marketing Association event covering businesses using viral video to raise awareness and build their brands. The keynote speaker was Dan Novak, VP Global Marketing, Communications and PR at Qualcomm. Dan was an entertaining and influential advocate of his company’s use of viral video. He was also modest and quick to give his marketing team and agencies credit for the ultra creative work. Dan presented what has become an incredibly successful series of viral videos for Qualcomm that were released around April Fool’s Day for the past two years and just before one of Qualcomm’s biggest industry conferences. The two viral videos proved to be paradigm shifting for what you’d think Qualcomm might produce. Viral videos Handsolo and Convergence break down any preconceived notions of stodginess from a Fortune 500 leader like Qualcomm.

The results of releasing these award-winning viral videos have been tremendous, including:

1) Enormous Industry Buzz – As they say with social media “you don’t communicate to your audience, you communicate through your audience.” These videos passed like wildfire through exactly the stakeholders Qualcomm would like most to reach – all the bright technical people in their ecosystem.

2) Household Name Recognition – These videos were also picked-up by bloggers and trackers of April Fool’s Day videos and extended to a still wider audience who may know little about Qualcomm.

3) Employee Pride – Staffers were able to wallow in the “cool” factor of their company. This was especially true for the Convergence video which used real employees.

4) Recruiting New Talent – Aside from being fun introduction videos any Sales Person would kill to show as an icebreaker, these videos do volumes for Qualcomm efforts to recruit the brightest talent coming out of today’s colleges and universities.

5) Creating Pent-up Demand for the 2010 Video – Awareness has moved to expectation; Qualcomm’s stakeholders are pining to know what kind of video this April will bring.

These and other Qualcomm videos are available on the Qualcomm website “video wall” which is very reminiscent of the brightly lit Qualcomm “Patent Wall” that glows like a beacon at night from their headquarters.

ROI sticklers in the audience wanted to know the revenue payback measures of these viral videos for Qualcomm. Dan responded with statistics surrounding the explosive number of views and visits to their site and even the less specific brand awareness improvements coming from efforts like these and everything else Qualcomm does to support their brand. In the end, it is hard to put a $ value on efforts like these to know if they work. But based upon the positive response of everyone in Qualcomm’s eco-system, Qualcomm executives can rest easy at night knowing their brand is thriving from programs like the viral videos.

2009-10-23T14:48:00.001-07:00

Cure JM recognized for fundraising success at the Chicago Marathon http://ping.fm/oBEOz

Persistence and the Payoff

2009-10-16T20:05:00.000-07:00

One of my very favorite quotes is from Calvin Coolidge who said...

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

Time and again this quote has proven to be so true in my career and personal life. So it is no surprise that last weekend persistence paid off, yet again, in the Hume family. Shari, my beautiful, intelligent and always running (literally) wife, was racing in yet another marathon. It was the Chicago Marathon and she was running for Team Cure JM. This was the second time she ran Chicago for the Cure JM Foundation and it was her 10th marathon to date. Count them, 10! Several years ago (probably around her 4th marathon), Shari decided if she was going to inflict this much pain on her body anyway, then she would try to qualify for the Boston Marathon. For the non-marathoners reading this, the Boston Marathon is the Holy Grail of marathons because to qualify for Boston you have to not only run marathons, but you have to run them FAST. The qualifying times are very challenging and for Shari they were alway elusive. One year, she ran 3 marathons trying to hit the qualifying time needed. In one of those marathons, she missed qualifying for Boston by only 5 minutes! Heartbreaking for all of us, but especially Shari. So at Chicago last weekend she went in as a dark horse; no one expected her to have a good race. She just ran a marathon in January (the Carlsbad Marathon for Cure JM) and spent much of the summer nursing injuries. The longest training run she did for Chicago was 10 miles. So while her body was not up for the task of running the Chicago Marathon, Shari was secretly putting her mind in gear to qualify for Boston. When a doubt arose in her mind that she did not train enough, she squashed the doubt by telling herself “yeah, so by not practicing long training runs, my body has less injuries and more strength.” She also thought of all of the children battling juvenile dermatomyositis and the marathons they battle everyday just leading normal lives.

Through shear mental fortitude and the experience of her 9 previous “training marathons,” Shari crossed the finish line with a whole three minutes to spare toward her Boston Marathon qualifying time. Impressively, Shari finished in the top 25% of the 45,000 runners registered for the Chicago Marathon. Over her past 15 years of marathon running, Shari never took her eyes off the prize and last weekend, she reached this monumental goal. Now she is already talking about her next big goal.

My three boys are very proud their Mom qualifyied for Boston. Equally, I am very proud of her qualifying time, but I’m even more proud of the example she sets for her sons to pursue your dreams and never give up.

Never, never, never give up. - Winston Churchill

The New Marketer’s Toolbox – insights from Duct Tape Marketing

2009-10-07T10:07:00.000-07:00

In John Jantsch’s Duct Tape Marketing Post from Wed Aug 26, 2009, John gave a list of 16 sites and/or tools to better manage your social media marketing activity and even general productivity. The list included:

Google Alerts
Central Desktop
Google Reader
TweetDeck
Firefox
Flickr
Snapz Pro X
Adium
ScreenFlow Pro
su.pr
Email Center Pro
Jott
SimpleNote
WordPress
Google Analytics
InfusionSoft

I’ve referred so many people to this list via tweets, emails, and (dare I say it) hard copies, that it was time for me to reference it here. For the full article and detailed descriptions of the tools above, go to the Duct Tape Marketing Blog.

Enjoy!

Location, Location, Location: Google Place Pages: Big Deal You May Have Missed

2009-10-03T08:26:00.000-07:00

Location, Location, Location: Google Place Pages: Big Deal You May Have Missed

All small businesses need to capture their physical location on the internet. Sources like Yahoo Directories and Google Maps have allowed business to not only show where they are but to give a little more detail about who they are and why a customer should care.

Now Google Place Pages pulls brick and mortar businesses online whether they like it or not. They now all have a web page which in many cases may be quite simple information, but all the better reason to engage with Google to claim that listing and potentially turn into an AdWords client.

If you have not captured or edited the sites pointing to your location from the web, do it today. Most of these sites are free.

Twelve Quick Uses for Social Media in the Marketing Mix

2009-09-30T16:10:00.000-07:00

I constantly meet with SMB owners who confide in me that they “don’t get twitter”. Sometimes they are outspoken about their feelings that social media has yet to find its place in business. However, in most cases they admit (with a feeling of guilt) that they just have not figured out the value. Yet, they know others have found value. In Michael Kahn’s article A Dozen Applications for Social Media from the Chief Marketer site, Michael summaries why business should care.

Here are the 12 uses he promotes:

1. Listen to Your Consumers

2. Talk to Consumers Face-to-Face

3. Brand Yourself as an Expert

4. Monitor and Respond to Customer Service Issues

5. Manage Reputations, React Quickly to Crises

6. Create Massive Conversations about Your Brand

7. Dominate the SERPs

8. Optimize Ads to Perform … Just like Search

9. Microtarget Ideal Users

10. Harvest Data With Custom Apps and Sweepstakes

11. Promote Coupons and Deals to Sell Products

12. Create More Engaging Display Ads

I’ve long advocated that small businesses should get into social media first by listening to customers; so it’s no surprise to me that “customer service” uses of social media rise to the top of Michael list. If you are not doing any of these things, it is time to take your head out of the sand. Your competitors are doing it already but if you’re lucky maybe your competitors are less focused on the customer service applications.

Here is the link to Michael’s article… http://chiefmarketer.com/disciplines/online/0922-social-media-applications/

Good Karma, Good Business

2009-09-23T22:41:00.000-07:00

Last week, I heard a speaker present on the subject of business networking and good Karma. Now, whatever your feelings are about fate, destiny or Karma, this speaker made some very irrefutable points about influencing others with selfless behavior. As she postulated, the top three ways to rack up "Karma points" (my words, not hers) are to 1) help someone with a health issue, 2) help someone financially and 3) to show genuine interest in someone's children (such as being a coach, teacher, scout master, etc and really truly helping their child). The more I thought about it, the more I knew this was true. From my own experience in helping families through the Cure JM Foundation, I know my family has received even more benefits from good fortune and inward strength to battle JM. And I am sure you've had an experience mentoring a younger colleague or helping to find someone a job which has come back to ultimately benefit you. In fact, I'd argue LinkedIn is built on this premiss. But what truly drove the point home for me on a world-wide scale was an article I read in this month's Mental Floss Magazine, http://www.mentalfloss.com/magazine/. The article, titled "How to Win Friends and Inoculate People" is about the Navy's new mission to export medical support to countries around the globe.

"As you read this, U.S. Navy ships the size of shopping malls are cruising full-speed toward troubled ports, ready to invade. But the professionals on deck aren't snipers or SEALs; they're highly skilled doctors and nurses acting on orders from the Pentagon. "

The article stated, in just 2 1/2 months, the navy treated 100,049 people, 13,238 animals, conducted 1,657 surgeries and filled 135,000 prescriptions in Central and South America. These are called Soft-Power missions. Of course these types of mercy missions are not new for the United States. However, the mega-scale of these new Soft-Power missions may be foreshadowing a radical foreign policy shift. And not to be out done, other countries, like China, are following suit.

"During the Cold War, superpowers fought for control of the Third World by selling arms and staging coups; today, they're competing to be the world's best helpers."

So bringing it closer to home, what have you done today to launch your "Operation Good Karma"? You and your business will be better for it.

Videos on the cheap

2009-08-12T09:21:00.000-07:00

If you're looking for a cheap way to get video content on your website or in demostrations and you don't have the staff or editing capability, try http://www.pixability.com/. They have an offer where they will send you Flip Camera, you shoot your video (demos, customer success stories, product shoot-outs, etc.), you send back the Flip Camera and they will edit the video into a nice package to be posted on your website, social media sites or simply to DVD. This is a must for any small business with zero video content on their website. They have different packages but most are under $500 for the service.

A must follow blog

2009-07-14T08:27:00.000-07:00

Whether you are doing marketing in a large company or a small business, you will find benefit from following John Jantsch and his Duct Tape Marketing blog. I truly learn something new every time I visit his site or receive his RSS feed. Check it out.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/s/#4Aoac3/www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/2009/07/14/tracking-your-customers-social-media-activity//

Connecting with your target market

2009-04-24T15:26:00.000-07:00

This video was passed along to me by a friend. It comes from an industry publication that I am the exact target buyer for. It is brilliant because it connects to me so well. So why mention it. Because sometimes reaching your exact target audience can be fun and emotional. Even though this video uses very specific industry corporate-speak it does it like no one else does. So it gets credit for being relevant and unique. Just watch...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P89E1F7tryU

How to get your press release noticed by search engines..

2009-04-07T18:00:00.000-07:00

In an earlier blog, I mentioned a powerful website called www.websitegrader.com that you can use to evaluate how optimized your website is for search engines like Google, Yahoo and many others. Well the clever people who created websitegrader.com have come up with another tool that you’ll find useful for your company’s press releases. If you cut and paste your press release into the application at www.pressreleasegrader.com you can determine (before you send out your press release) if your press release will be found by major search engines. You’ll get customized tips on simple changes you can make to your press release that will increase the visibility of both your press release and your company on the web. Give it a try, it’s free. For kicks, I tested a couple of Sage Software press releases and I must admit they did well…..music to the ears of John, our VP of Corporate Communications.

A cheap and easy website evaluation tool

2009-04-07T17:40:00.000-07:00

Want to get your website noticed by search engines? – Here is an easy, powerful and FREE tool to get you started.

How's your website doing? If you're among the ranks of the incredibly web-savvy, you can probably answer that question with a mind-blowing array of details about your search engine rankings, visitation rates, average time visitors spend on each page and the number of other sites connected to you. If you are among this “web-elite”, you have no doubt learned to leverage a multitude of free programs on the web to help you determine the effectiveness of your website or you program these tools yourself.

So what if you want greater visibility for your website, but you’re not a web search guru? I found a great site that puts together a very thorough report about how effect your website is versus your competitors. It is called http://www.websitegrader.com/ and of course, it is free. Well, almost free. You have to give them your email address (however, you will not receive any spam as long as you do not opt in). The report you’ll get details your web pages that are not downloading well, the effectiveness of your metadata, headings, and images, your search engine rankings, and other sites connected to you. Plus, you’ll get a bunch of suggestions to make some minor changes to your site in order to get a big lift in your rankings.

As I said, there are other similar tools like this available on the web. I've just found http://www.websitegrader.com/ to be the simplest. Tell your customers about this site too.